


Inadvertent

by enmity



Category: Tales of Berseria, Tales of Series
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon, Pre-Res, Unreliable Narrator (a little), eleanor has a crush and teresa pretends she's 2 cool 2 care abt it (but she's interested)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15300933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: It isn’t adorable. It’s shameful, if anything.“Eleanor," Teresa says. "You’re staring."





	Inadvertent

**Author's Note:**

> this doesn't follow a prompt or anything im just using the opportunity 2 post a f/f fanfic on femslash week, & ive had the idea eleanor crushed on teresa when she was starting out for a while now haha... this is all b4 the church was exposed and eleanor went all traitor ofc. also i didn't canon review so sorry if characterization/details are spotty u_u
> 
> cw i guess for teresa's in-canon brother complex but i tried at least to tone it down...i hope

The girl who her brother gave up his would-be position to is called Eleanor Hume. It’s a name Teresa had to search her memory for three times before remembering, the first time she saw her again; they know of each other by virtue of work and proximity, but they’ve never had a conversation until the day Eleanor was brought in to Hellawes as a patrol officer working under her in Oscar’s stead, and speaking honestly, if professionalism were considered any less of a word in her dictionary than it already were, considering the label of _favoritism_ fools so often tack onto her, that alone might have been enough of a reason for Teresa to antagonize her from the beginning.

Looking at her, voice small and deferring as she lays out the details of her report in Teresa’s office, it’s hard to see what, exactly, had inspired Oscar to pass up his prospects of a cushy patrol job right under his sister’s watchful eyes in favor of one situated on an island miles away, crawling with monsters and lowlifes of all kinds— but of course, Teresa knows him enough to know there doesn’t _need_ to be a reason. The Abbey doesn’t have much room to spare for lenience, but he does.

She never did have the heart to scold him for that. Her sweet, darling, _naive_ Oscar, risking himself for the sake of a colleague he barely knew. If not for her, whatever will become of him? It’s a thought so fond it’s almost bitter.

Teresa tightens the line of her jaw, curbing the urge to sigh or press her fingers against her temple, as she would have in an idler, more private moment. The redhead flickers back into her vision, and as though overly conscious of both herself and the attention hefted by Teresa’s gaze pointed squarely towards her, Eleanor blinks, catching herself mid-word and straightening her shoulders with robotic immediacy before she resumes her line of conversation about crime rates and demon activities in the outskirts of town. “As I’m sure you already know _…_ ”

She doesn’t carry herself well, Teresa observes, her fingertips tracing an unconscious curve down the cerulean gem of her earring. There’s the faintest shade of fluster tinting her cheeks and Teresa almost can’t believe the girl standing before her is one out of the few dozen who climbed the ranks to praetor before turning twenty.

It’s a shortcoming she wouldn’t have dwelled on for more than a moment, but she’s feeling particularly annoyed, particularly vindictive, and she can already imagine: one meek and demure plea coming from the girl’s mouth, and Oscar would have been swayed, too easily moved by helplessness and too forthcoming for doubt.

( _I let someone else take my place,_ he had written her, days before, and she’d almost cringed as she read his words and imagined the incongruity of him standing against a backdrop of Titania’s gloomy stone walls. _She had very much wanted_ _to work under you, I heard, and I saw how pleased she was when I made it so she did… I hope you won’t mind very much, Sister. I know you’ll be worried, but please try not to—_ and she’d tightened her grip with such inadvertent force the paper nearly tore.)

No, she thinks. It might not have taken even that.

“Lady Teresa?”

The uplift of Eleanor’s voice pulls Teresa back to the office she’s sitting in: the clock ticking on the wall and the stack of paper on her desk and the subordinate in front of her, fiery hair bathed in the not-quite radiant glow of winter sunlight, looking at her with more intensity and less fear in those green eyes than Teresa would expect to inspire from her. Now she can start to accept why a less prepared person could be caught off-guard.

“Yes?” she replies, careful and even.

“I’m finished,” Eleanor says. Her hand twitches as if to make grab of the edge of her skirt, but she remembers herself, and doesn’t. “That’s all I have to report for today.”

“And?” she says, decidedly and entirely unimpressed, and she definitely does not feel the rather irrational urge to smile vindictively at the way Eleanor all but jolts at the slightest notion of displeasure in her voice, a reaction Teresa already knows well after only a few days of working with her. It isn’t adorable. It’s shameful, if anything. “Eleanor. You’re staring. You do know that’s rude, don’t you?” she adds, sounding remarkably pleased for a reason that escapes her. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

She expects Eleanor to catch herself and apologize, perhaps excuse herself out the door with her skirt fluttering hastily after her, but instead the girl takes the slightest step forward.

“I-It’s nothing!” she starts, “It’s just… I noticed your earrings. They’re very – striking? I didn’t see you wearing them until yesterday, so I – wanted to tell you how much they suited you, that’s all! I-I’m very sorry if that sounds strange. I’ll be going back to my post now.”

“Now, now,” she says, and fingers the earring distractedly, and doesn’t mention anything about how it was her brother who gave them to her, how she wore them to serve as a replacement for his presence once he gave word that his deployment to Titania was a done deal. Eleanor is still staring. “No need to be so flustered. That wasn’t so hard to say, was it? It wouldn’t hurt to have some confidence in you,” she says, sweetly, and it’s because it’s what she imagines what someone who cared would say.

Because she doesn’t care, and there’s nothing charming, after all, about the way Eleanor flutters, manages to keep her gaze straight at her despite herself. Teresa doesn’t even wonder how the girl would react if only she told her of the truth behind her newfound position – of her brother and his predisposition for foolish acts of kindness – and it would be easy to imagine her face scrunched up in surprise and disappointment at the knowledge, because she really couldn’t care less, but at the moment she finds that Eleanor’s current expression is far more amusing to watch.

Now she can start to understand why _he_ was moved.

How earnest. How transparent. How _ridiculous_ , she thinks, and yet some part of her finds herself disliking Eleanor a little bit less. The fact should be called into question, but then again, she’s never been the type to feel the need to explain anything to anyone.

So when Eleanor does excuse herself, stepping out of her office slightly more giddy than she entered it, and when Teresa is left to herself again, staring at her papers, she doesn’t think much of the fact that Eleanor’s embarrassed face isn’t something she imagines she would forget anytime soon.


End file.
